Climate debate tests clean coal power

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They’ve put the black rock on billboards in swing states and splashed it on full-page ads in Roll Call and yes, POLITICO. They sponsored presidential debates on CNN, and their “clean coal” boosters were a fixture on the campaign trail. They’ve rolled out a series of TV spots from the firm that promised that what happens in Vegas will stay in Vegas.

As Butch Cassidy might say, “Who are those guys?”

They’re the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a collection of 48 mining, rail, manufacturing and power-generating companies with an annual budget of more than $45 million — almost three times larger than the coal industry’s old lobbying and public relations groups combined. ACCCE (pronounced “Ace”) is just celebrating its first birthday, but it has already become a juggernaut shaping the terms of the climate change debate on Capitol Hill — even while weathering a high-profile assault by critics who accuse it of peddling hot air.

ACCCE’s impact will be on display starting Tuesday as House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings start on a draft climate bill penned by panel Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and the Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Just a year ago, Waxman and Markey backed a moratorium on new coal-fired electricity plants. But their new draft would allow new coal plants through 2015, if they are retrofitted to cut carbon dioxide output 40 percent to 60 percent within another decade. The technology to do that does not yet exist, but the new measure would set up a $1 billion-a-year clean coal research fund to help.

Roots

For ACCCE, there’s little doubt the new legislation represents significant progress — progress with roots that go back at least five years to a strategy hatched by two genial Kentucky natives with ties to moderate Democrats. One of them, Steve Miller, had been a campaign manager for former Democratic Kentucky Gov. Brereton Jones before taking the helm of an earlier coal industry public relations effort, the Center for Energy and Economic Development.

The other, Joe Lucas, worked at a Kentucky state mining agency and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and then handled coal-related communications for Clinton-era Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary. Ten years ago, Lucas became the spokesman for another coal industry group — Americans for Balanced Energy Choices — that was working with Miller’s.

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By 2004, though, Miller and Lucas sensed a changing landscape transformed by concern over global warming. A memo from Miller to Irl Engelhardt, then chief of mining giant Peabody Energy, spelled out a new approach. “On climate change, like other issues, you must be for something rather than against everything.”

In addition, Lucas said recently, “it was clear that a much larger budget was necessary.” In 2007, he and Miller told the firms behind previous efforts that the election year of 2008 and beyond would require a more aggressive effort. Not only did Democratic presidential candidates support action on global warming, Republican front-runner John McCain had long championed the issue as well. And international negotiations kicking off in late 2009 would put pressure on the United States to lead on climate policy.

Readers' Comments (25)

In a logical world where it is recognized that the US has plenty of coal our energy policy would be coal based. But no. No coal, no oil, no nuclear and we just dreamed up a new tax called "Cap 'N Trade".

We should not have to apologize for heating our homes or driving our cars. "Climate Change" is a bunch of bull used to expand the tax base. Like I said, we have coal, let's use it.

jackieaxe, do you know anyone in western pa, or in ohio or any other places they're mining coal or natural gas? it's a highly destructive and toxic practice. it keeps you warm, but it poisons the wells of entire townships. it collapses homes. it destroys wildlife and their habitat. it renders the soil useless for growing food. you do realize that without those things I listed above, you can forget about staying warm..you'll be cold and dead.

Can some PROVE to me that GW exists before we start taxing the hell out of business and putting them out of business? Sometimes I think this is what the environazis want. They had to start calling it Climate change because the earth is NOT warming.

This debate will come down too who in the Republican and democrat party still believe in America. An America that was developed on the backs of the hard working coal miners; the hard working oil drillers; the hardworking loggers and the hard working ranchers and farmers. This debate will depend on if the politicians are so in love with "environmentalists", who have no idea what hard work is all about. They only know what their anti everything professors have put in their little skulls. Coal is from OUR Earth; it is here to be used until the environmentalists understand that nuclear energy is also a clean source of fuel.

As it stands right now coal and oil are about the only things we can sell the world thats going to help us pay off these huge budget deficits. So we better get drilling and mining or we're all going to be in big trouble.

The environmentalists would have us all riding bikes and lighting our homes with candles.

If global warming is real I sure wish it would reach the Northeast, its freezing up here.

where's your Yankee Ingenuity, Scott? why do you think so low of the American people's ability to innovate?

No coal.....no oil.....no nuclear.....no hydro, just where is the power going to come from paw? I work in the electric utility industry and I can tell you wind is not the answer and solar technology hasn't progressed at all. Yankee ingenuity is great but where is it and what are we suppose to use while waiting for the next "big thing"?

Health hazzards are a part of life paw. If I lived in a coal producing community I think I would drink bottled water and feed my babies formula just to be safe. We need jobs created in this country and people that do them know the risks involved. Smoking causes cancer but millions of people still do it. Its all about choices. Its a free country, or at least it use to be.

I guess it's just the hole we've dug for ourselves. with the current model, we can't earn livings without reasonably convenient transportation. unfortunately, our current energy needs are so great, we're forced to sacrifice a part of the main system that sustains us all: our ecosystem.

There is no such thing as clean coal, as in so-called clean-coal tech has not advanced one iota since the propaganda campaign began. This is about protecting entrenched corporate interests and nothing more--something so-called libertarians are often perfectly willing participants in. How much liberty will there be from a warming planet? Of course most libertarians seem to take the big cop out and deny the science of global warming. Conveniently.

No coal.....no oil.....no nuclear.....no hydro, just where is the power going to come from paw? I work in the electric utility industry and I can tell you wind is not the answer and solar technology hasn't progressed at all. Yankee ingenuity is great but where is it and what are we suppose to use while waiting for the next "big thing"?

Well if you work in the industy then you should know the only thing "Clean Coal" is the word clean

Stripmining ruins the land , sludge ponds ruin the aquifers and coal fired power plants blech filth into to the sky.

There is no such thing as clean coal, as in so-called clean-coal tech has not advanced one iota since the propaganda campaign began. This is about protecting entrenched corporate interests and nothing more--something so-called libertarians are often perfectly willing participants in. How much liberty will there be from a warming planet? Of course most libertarians seem to take the big cop out and deny the science of global warming. Conveniently.

The real agenda is to repeal environment regulations and cripple the EPA

After all if global warming is a myth we don't need the EPA or regulations to protect the environment.

I happen to like clean air, water land

We as a nation have done a great deal in the last 30 or 40 years to address pollution in all areas.

Do we really want to undo all of that?

I personally like being able to fish in Americas lakes and waterways this wasn't the case all that long ago.

LA thanks to those horrible CA emission standards has clearer air in 2008 than it did in 1988

How much liberty will there be from a warming planet? Of course most libertarians seem to take the big cop out and deny the science of global warming. Conveniently.

What's your energy plan? I don't want to dismantle the EPA but I think reason needs to enter the argument at some point. I don't want to pay an additional $3,000 a year to heat my home and drive my car through the NEW "cap 'n trade" tax. We have plenty of coal. If there's a way to utilize it, it should be our first choice. Drilling for oil doesn't look to pretty either. We could utilize nuclear but there's a vast culture of opposition to nuclear. Oil comes from terrorist nations.

There is no such thing as clean coal. Even if we develop the technology to capture carbon we still need to mine the coal. What is clean about mountain top removal or coal sludge? Answer--nothing. http://images.google.com/image...http://images.google.com/image... Also, of note, more people are employed in the wind energy industry than the coal industry. http://greenwombat.blogs.fortu... The burning of coal also has significant health ramifications according to the American Lung Associations. http://lungaction.org/reports/... If politicians in washington cave to clean coal pressure, its a win for industry lobbyists and a loss for the vast majority of Americans. Call your representatives and tell them to actively oppose any clean coal funding or measures.

jackieaxe, do you know anyone in western pa, or in ohio or any other places they're mining coal or natural gas? it's a highly destructive and toxic practice. it keeps you warm, but it poisons the wells of entire townships. it collapses homes. it destroys wildlife and their habitat. it renders the soil useless for growing food. you do realize that without those things I listed above, you can forget about staying warm..you'll be cold and dead

What's your energy plan? I don't want to dismantle the EPA but I think reason needs to enter the argument at some point. I don't want to pay an additional $3,000 a year to heat my home and drive my car through the NEW "cap 'n trade" tax. We have plenty of coal. If there's a way to utilize it, it should be our first choice. Drilling for oil doesn't look to pretty either. We could utilize nuclear but there's a vast culture of opposition to nuclear. Oil comes from terrorist nations.

You really don't get it coal is filthy no ifs ands or buts

Alternatives exist such as localized power generation and conservation exist.

This might be boring as ditch water but something as simple as everyone changing to energy conserving light bulbs